Chill out in this Sunday’s comments thread

A friendly atmosphere in the middle of an internet at war.

This is your spot to kick back and talk with your friends. We see the same regular faces here in our little corner every week, and it’s interesting watching everyone get to know each other a little better. It’s also great to see the new faces, even if it’s just for a single visit. And let’s be honest — it’s nice to find something besides phones to talk about online once in a while. I sit here with Rex, my old dachshund, every weekend and read through the comments when I have a minute and find it oddly relaxing. So does Rex, I think.

Rex just turned 14 but still drags out all his toys. And loves his bean bag throne

It’s been a tough week. The world seems to be coming apart at the seams; we’re still reeling from the tragedy that happened in Las Vegas, people in the Caribbean are dying before our eyes, and we’re actually fighting over politics instead of just yelling at each other. Seems like a lot of weeks have been tough weeks as of late.

Someone can chime in about safe spaces, but I find a need to just shut everything out for a while and try to find some inner focus. Hearing how you have to wash your car or that you’re going to see a movie or whatever else reminds me that we’re all the same once you whittle away at the outer shell a little. That’s awesome.

So take a minute and let us all know about the mundane boring things you’re doing this weekend as well as anything really cool. I’m buttoning up some things to prepare for a busy busy week at work, but I’m being chill as can be while doing it. Just me and Rex.

Ben Heck’s Super Glue Gun: Integrating mechanisms

The super glue gun project is starting to come together. After designing the automatically deploying stand, the team is now combining it with the trigger so that it can deploy when you grab onto it using capacitive touch sensing. Putting together these mechanisms means joining up the code for the extrusion using the ATTiny20 microcontroller — but this introduces its own problems. What do you think of the build so far? What should the team do differently? Let the team know over on the element14 Community.

Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: Go-anywhere washers, stoves, adventure tape

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the Web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there – alongside some real gems. We’ve cut through the Pebble clones and janky iPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project — even the best intentioned — can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.

Kappa — folding 3D printer

3D printers have come a long way in the past few years. Today, they come in an absolutely massive variety of different shapes, sizes, and configurations. And though it might seem like innovation in this category has slowed down, clever new 3D printing ideas abound on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Case in point? This new printer from Singaporean startup Ionic3DP. Rather than sticking with the standard cartesian or delta configurations, these guys developed a printer that uses a completely different style of motion.

The Kappa, as it’s called, is a 3D printer that uses something called the Scott Russell Straight Line Mechanism. This mechanism (which is widely used in the automobile industry and pick-and-place robots in manufacturing industries) boasts high precision and reliability.

Due to the machine’s unique design, it’s not only capable of printing very tall/long objects, but also folding up for easy transport. Not to mention, since it’s relatively simple in terms of operation and construction, the Kappa is also highly affordable. You can get your hands on one for just $359 on Kickstarter right now.

Adventure Tape — multipurpose, reusable tape

Duct tape has enjoyed a cult following pretty much since it was first invented — and for good reason. As you’re no doubt aware, the cloth-backed polyethylene adhesive can be used for just about anything imaginable: patching a leaky raft, making a tuxedo for junior prom, or even saving the Apollo 13 mission from disaster. But the thing is, duct tape was invented during World War II — so by all rights, the world is long overdue for a newer and more capable adhesive. Well, if you’ve been waiting for the next revolution in multipurpose tape to arrive, we have good news for you: duct tape 2.0 is here, and it goes by the name Adventure Tape.

“Adventure Tape can be used for many things, but currently we are targeting outdoor and travel enthusiasts and survival or extreme sports lovers,” Anthony Cooper, co-founder of Adventure Tape, told Digital Trends in an interview. “The biggest advantage it has over duct tape is that it won’t leave any sticky residue, so it can be removed from your kit without any damage. That’s especially handy for not ripping up your bubble wrap. The advantage it has over string and rope is that it’s very strong and stretchy, so it won’t tear — and because it’s self-tacky, it can easily be fastened with a simple tuck, meaning no complicated knots.”

“It can [also] replace existing items: our favorite has to be the snowboard binding fix,” Cooper continued. “There’s nothing more annoying than being stuck at the top of the mountain, and no way to get down. It won’t damage your boots or boarding pants, and most importantly, because of its stretchy properties, it will still have a little give in it, and thus allow for a wider range of movement.”

Sonic Soak — ultrasonic washing machine

If you’ve ever done any long term traveling (be it for business or for pleasure), you know firsthand just how annoying and inconvenient it can be to wash your clothes in a foreign place. If you can’t find a laundromat nearby, your only option is to wash your garments by hand in a sink or bathtub, which is both time consuming and laborious. But not to worry — there might be a solution to this problem. The Sonic Soak, as it’s called, is a portable ultrasonic washing machine that promises to supercharge your sink-bound laundry sessions.

So how does it work? First, fill your sink with water, detergent, and your soiled clothes — then just drop in the Sonic Soak. The device’s transducer sends out ultrasonic vibrations, creating powerful water micro-jets as the resultant bubbles implode. Essentially, these jets do all the cleaning, so you don’t have to. This exact same technology is used at a larger scale in chemistry laboratories, where it’s known as sonication.

The device actually plugs into the wall, but uses 80 percent less energy than its appliance counterparts, according to the Telegraph. The transducer requires a high voltage to operate, which is likely why it isn’t battery-powered. Still, the entire thing is easily transportable, though it doesn’t solve the problem of drying the clothes afterwards.

GoSun Go — ultraportable solar stove

Harnessing the power of the sun and concentrating its energy to generate heat is something that humans have been doing for millennia. Back in the second century AD, it’s said that Archimedes used a giant parabolic mirror array to set approaching warships on fire. People were likely experimenting with solar energy long before that, as well. And here we are 2,000 years down the road, still doing it the same way. Our equipment, however, has gotten considerably more advanced.

Take GoSun’s new solar cooker, the Go, for example. This gizmo is basically a miniaturized version of the same parabolic mirror array, but designed for the sole purpose of cooking food and boiling water. Rather than being forced to fiddle with charcoal briquettes or build a roaring fire to prepare your food/water in the backcountry, the GoSun Go allows you to cook quickly and completely with nothing but a few rays of sunshine. Best of all, it’s smaller and more portable than GoSun’s previous products, which means you can easily pack it along on camping trips, backpacking trips, and even the occasional picnic.

Eta Clock — analog location display

Remember that clock that the Weasley family had in the Harry Potter movies? You know — the one that magically kept track of the whereabouts of each family member via multi-handed display? If you’ve been waiting for that clock to enter the world of muggles, then we’ve got good news for you: it’s finally here. The Eta Clock is a clever location tracking device that syncs with an app on your smartphone and displays the whereabouts of your friends/family via a multi-handed analog display.

“The idea for the Eta Clock started two years ago when we wanted a way for our parents to feel connected to our lives without sacrificing our privacy,” co-founder Kristie D’Ambrosio-Correll, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumna, told Digital Trends. “For my parents’ 35th wedding anniversary, we decided the perfect gift would be a device that gives them peace-of-mind; something that keeps them connected to their adult children without requiring invasive tracking. The Eta Clock concept was born! As we spent the next year building the clock and honing our design, we realized that there were many people who wanted a similar device, sparking us to launch our first Kickstarter campaign.”

Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: Go-anywhere washers, stoves, adventure tape

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the Web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there – alongside some real gems. We’ve cut through the Pebble clones and janky iPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project — even the best intentioned — can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.

Kappa — folding 3D printer

3D printers have come a long way in the past few years. Today, they come in an absolutely massive variety of different shapes, sizes, and configurations. And though it might seem like innovation in this category has slowed down, clever new 3D printing ideas abound on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Case in point? This new printer from Singaporean startup Ionic3DP. Rather than sticking with the standard cartesian or delta configurations, these guys developed a printer that uses a completely different style of motion.

The Kappa, as it’s called, is a 3D printer that uses something called the Scott Russell Straight Line Mechanism. This mechanism (which is widely used in the automobile industry and pick-and-place robots in manufacturing industries) boasts high precision and reliability.

Due to the machine’s unique design, it’s not only capable of printing very tall/long objects, but also folding up for easy transport. Not to mention, since it’s relatively simple in terms of operation and construction, the Kappa is also highly affordable. You can get your hands on one for just $359 on Kickstarter right now.

Adventure Tape — multipurpose, reusable tape

Duct tape has enjoyed a cult following pretty much since it was first invented — and for good reason. As you’re no doubt aware, the cloth-backed polyethylene adhesive can be used for just about anything imaginable: patching a leaky raft, making a tuxedo for junior prom, or even saving the Apollo 13 mission from disaster. But the thing is, duct tape was invented during World War II — so by all rights, the world is long overdue for a newer and more capable adhesive. Well, if you’ve been waiting for the next revolution in multipurpose tape to arrive, we have good news for you: duct tape 2.0 is here, and it goes by the name Adventure Tape.

“Adventure Tape can be used for many things, but currently we are targeting outdoor and travel enthusiasts and survival or extreme sports lovers,” Anthony Cooper, co-founder of Adventure Tape, told Digital Trends in an interview. “The biggest advantage it has over duct tape is that it won’t leave any sticky residue, so it can be removed from your kit without any damage. That’s especially handy for not ripping up your bubble wrap. The advantage it has over string and rope is that it’s very strong and stretchy, so it won’t tear — and because it’s self-tacky, it can easily be fastened with a simple tuck, meaning no complicated knots.”

“It can [also] replace existing items: our favorite has to be the snowboard binding fix,” Cooper continued. “There’s nothing more annoying than being stuck at the top of the mountain, and no way to get down. It won’t damage your boots or boarding pants, and most importantly, because of its stretchy properties, it will still have a little give in it, and thus allow for a wider range of movement.”

Sonic Soak — ultrasonic washing machine

If you’ve ever done any long term traveling (be it for business or for pleasure), you know firsthand just how annoying and inconvenient it can be to wash your clothes in a foreign place. If you can’t find a laundromat nearby, your only option is to wash your garments by hand in a sink or bathtub, which is both time consuming and laborious. But not to worry — there might be a solution to this problem. The Sonic Soak, as it’s called, is a portable ultrasonic washing machine that promises to supercharge your sink-bound laundry sessions.

So how does it work? First, fill your sink with water, detergent, and your soiled clothes — then just drop in the Sonic Soak. The device’s transducer sends out ultrasonic vibrations, creating powerful water micro-jets as the resultant bubbles implode. Essentially, these jets do all the cleaning, so you don’t have to. This exact same technology is used at a larger scale in chemistry laboratories, where it’s known as sonication.

The device actually plugs into the wall, but uses 80 percent less energy than its appliance counterparts, according to the Telegraph. The transducer requires a high voltage to operate, which is likely why it isn’t battery-powered. Still, the entire thing is easily transportable, though it doesn’t solve the problem of drying the clothes afterwards.

GoSun Go — ultraportable solar stove

Harnessing the power of the sun and concentrating its energy to generate heat is something that humans have been doing for millennia. Back in the second century AD, it’s said that Archimedes used a giant parabolic mirror array to set approaching warships on fire. People were likely experimenting with solar energy long before that, as well. And here we are 2,000 years down the road, still doing it the same way. Our equipment, however, has gotten considerably more advanced.

Take GoSun’s new solar cooker, the Go, for example. This gizmo is basically a miniaturized version of the same parabolic mirror array, but designed for the sole purpose of cooking food and boiling water. Rather than being forced to fiddle with charcoal briquettes or build a roaring fire to prepare your food/water in the backcountry, the GoSun Go allows you to cook quickly and completely with nothing but a few rays of sunshine. Best of all, it’s smaller and more portable than GoSun’s previous products, which means you can easily pack it along on camping trips, backpacking trips, and even the occasional picnic.

Eta Clock — analog location display

Remember that clock that the Weasley family had in the Harry Potter movies? You know — the one that magically kept track of the whereabouts of each family member via multi-handed display? If you’ve been waiting for that clock to enter the world of muggles, then we’ve got good news for you: it’s finally here. The Eta Clock is a clever location tracking device that syncs with an app on your smartphone and displays the whereabouts of your friends/family via a multi-handed analog display.

“The idea for the Eta Clock started two years ago when we wanted a way for our parents to feel connected to our lives without sacrificing our privacy,” co-founder Kristie D’Ambrosio-Correll, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumna, told Digital Trends. “For my parents’ 35th wedding anniversary, we decided the perfect gift would be a device that gives them peace-of-mind; something that keeps them connected to their adult children without requiring invasive tracking. The Eta Clock concept was born! As we spent the next year building the clock and honing our design, we realized that there were many people who wanted a similar device, sparking us to launch our first Kickstarter campaign.”

Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: Go-anywhere washers, stoves, adventure tape

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the Web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there – alongside some real gems. We’ve cut through the Pebble clones and janky iPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project — even the best intentioned — can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.

Kappa — folding 3D printer

3D printers have come a long way in the past few years. Today, they come in an absolutely massive variety of different shapes, sizes, and configurations. And though it might seem like innovation in this category has slowed down, clever new 3D printing ideas abound on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Case in point? This new printer from Singaporean startup Ionic3DP. Rather than sticking with the standard cartesian or delta configurations, these guys developed a printer that uses a completely different style of motion.

The Kappa, as it’s called, is a 3D printer that uses something called the Scott Russell Straight Line Mechanism. This mechanism (which is widely used in the automobile industry and pick-and-place robots in manufacturing industries) boasts high precision and reliability.

Due to the machine’s unique design, it’s not only capable of printing very tall/long objects, but also folding up for easy transport. Not to mention, since it’s relatively simple in terms of operation and construction, the Kappa is also highly affordable. You can get your hands on one for just $359 on Kickstarter right now.

Adventure Tape — multipurpose, reusable tape

Duct tape has enjoyed a cult following pretty much since it was first invented — and for good reason. As you’re no doubt aware, the cloth-backed polyethylene adhesive can be used for just about anything imaginable: patching a leaky raft, making a tuxedo for junior prom, or even saving the Apollo 13 mission from disaster. But the thing is, duct tape was invented during World War II — so by all rights, the world is long overdue for a newer and more capable adhesive. Well, if you’ve been waiting for the next revolution in multipurpose tape to arrive, we have good news for you: duct tape 2.0 is here, and it goes by the name Adventure Tape.

“Adventure Tape can be used for many things, but currently we are targeting outdoor and travel enthusiasts and survival or extreme sports lovers,” Anthony Cooper, co-founder of Adventure Tape, told Digital Trends in an interview. “The biggest advantage it has over duct tape is that it won’t leave any sticky residue, so it can be removed from your kit without any damage. That’s especially handy for not ripping up your bubble wrap. The advantage it has over string and rope is that it’s very strong and stretchy, so it won’t tear — and because it’s self-tacky, it can easily be fastened with a simple tuck, meaning no complicated knots.”

“It can [also] replace existing items: our favorite has to be the snowboard binding fix,” Cooper continued. “There’s nothing more annoying than being stuck at the top of the mountain, and no way to get down. It won’t damage your boots or boarding pants, and most importantly, because of its stretchy properties, it will still have a little give in it, and thus allow for a wider range of movement.”

Sonic Soak — ultrasonic washing machine

If you’ve ever done any long term traveling (be it for business or for pleasure), you know firsthand just how annoying and inconvenient it can be to wash your clothes in a foreign place. If you can’t find a laundromat nearby, your only option is to wash your garments by hand in a sink or bathtub, which is both time consuming and laborious. But not to worry — there might be a solution to this problem. The Sonic Soak, as it’s called, is a portable ultrasonic washing machine that promises to supercharge your sink-bound laundry sessions.

So how does it work? First, fill your sink with water, detergent, and your soiled clothes — then just drop in the Sonic Soak. The device’s transducer sends out ultrasonic vibrations, creating powerful water micro-jets as the resultant bubbles implode. Essentially, these jets do all the cleaning, so you don’t have to. This exact same technology is used at a larger scale in chemistry laboratories, where it’s known as sonication.

The device actually plugs into the wall, but uses 80 percent less energy than its appliance counterparts, according to the Telegraph. The transducer requires a high voltage to operate, which is likely why it isn’t battery-powered. Still, the entire thing is easily transportable, though it doesn’t solve the problem of drying the clothes afterwards.

GoSun Go — ultraportable solar stove

Harnessing the power of the sun and concentrating its energy to generate heat is something that humans have been doing for millennia. Back in the second century AD, it’s said that Archimedes used a giant parabolic mirror array to set approaching warships on fire. People were likely experimenting with solar energy long before that, as well. And here we are 2,000 years down the road, still doing it the same way. Our equipment, however, has gotten considerably more advanced.

Take GoSun’s new solar cooker, the Go, for example. This gizmo is basically a miniaturized version of the same parabolic mirror array, but designed for the sole purpose of cooking food and boiling water. Rather than being forced to fiddle with charcoal briquettes or build a roaring fire to prepare your food/water in the backcountry, the GoSun Go allows you to cook quickly and completely with nothing but a few rays of sunshine. Best of all, it’s smaller and more portable than GoSun’s previous products, which means you can easily pack it along on camping trips, backpacking trips, and even the occasional picnic.

Eta Clock — analog location display

Remember that clock that the Weasley family had in the Harry Potter movies? You know — the one that magically kept track of the whereabouts of each family member via multi-handed display? If you’ve been waiting for that clock to enter the world of muggles, then we’ve got good news for you: it’s finally here. The Eta Clock is a clever location tracking device that syncs with an app on your smartphone and displays the whereabouts of your friends/family via a multi-handed analog display.

“The idea for the Eta Clock started two years ago when we wanted a way for our parents to feel connected to our lives without sacrificing our privacy,” co-founder Kristie D’Ambrosio-Correll, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumna, told Digital Trends. “For my parents’ 35th wedding anniversary, we decided the perfect gift would be a device that gives them peace-of-mind; something that keeps them connected to their adult children without requiring invasive tracking. The Eta Clock concept was born! As we spent the next year building the clock and honing our design, we realized that there were many people who wanted a similar device, sparking us to launch our first Kickstarter campaign.”

First ‘Rocket League’ Halloween event kicks off October 16th

There may be an emerging backlash to loot boxes in video games, but that isn’t stopping Psyonix from hyping them up. Rocket League is holding its first-ever Halloween event between October 16th and November 6th, and it’s ushering in a new event system that encourages you to earn crates. The more you play online, the more you earn a special event-only currency (Candy Corn) to spend on event-specific keys (Decryptors) that unlock crates holding Halloween-themed perks. You’ll occasionally get lucky with crate drops, but you’ll otherwise have to buy as many crates and Decryptors as you can.

Notably, Psyonix is eager to prevent any shady dealings. Unlike the gear you get using normal keys, you can’t trade anything you obtain from a crate using Halloween Decryptors. You can use ordinary keys to unlock event crates and trade items after a week-long hold window, but the new currency is clearly there to encourage buying non-tradeable goods. Also, don’t expect to stockpile Candy Corn so that you can carry it forward to next year’s event — it’ll expire a week after the 2017 event ends.

Yes, this is a bit convoluted. Psyonix is clearly trying to dangle a carrot in front of gamers without opening itself to the abuses that can come with trading systems. You don’t want hustlers gouging players who are determined to own a special car. However, it’s easy to see why the developer would go this route. Seasonal events can easily inject life into games once their initial novelty fades (just ask Blizzard), and loot crates only add to that frenzy. Unfortunately, that still means you’re left grinding away until you get what you were hoping for.

Source: Rocket League

Steam will support VR in very large rooms

If you want to play a room-scale VR game using Steam’s current tracking method, you need to do it in a 13-by-13 foot area. That’s fine for your living room, but what if you want more space? Don’t fret: Valve has announced that SteamVR Tracking 2.0 will support a cavernous 33 feet by 33 feet space starting in early 2018. You’ll need four trackers to do it instead of two, but this could be very helpful for arcades or any other experience that could benefit from greater freedom of movement.

The company is looking at support for even more tracking stations and thus a larger space, but it doesn’t have a timetable to offer. Don’t expect to run around a warehouse-sized VR environment, folks. There also won’t be an official mounting option for SteamVR until later in 2018, and the finished next-generation tracking system won’t work with existing HTC Vive headsets. Developers can use the Vive through engineering samples that add a blinker for backwards compatibility.

As you might guess, this won’t make a huge difference if you only ever experience VR in your den. It’s more about public or commercial VR, where you want as few arbitrary boundaries as possible. However, it’s advances like these that could be crucial to VR as a whole. Walkabout VR should ideally be limited only by the size of the room, not the trackers. This isn’t technically unlimited, but it’s close enough that more developers could let their imaginations run wild.

Via: Gamasutra

Source: Steam

FDA-approved robot assistant gives surgeons force feedback

Surgeons are trained to accurately operate on you when you need it, but robotic assistants could help them get to hard-to-reach areas and boost their accuracy even more. Senhance, the robotic surgical assistant that has just earned the FDA’s approval, was designed to accomplish both of those. The machine can help surgeons carry out minimally invasive surgery — in fact, the FDA has approved its use because after a pilot test involving 150 patients, the agency has concluded that Senhance is as accurate as the da Vinci robot when it came to gynecological and colorectal procedures.

Congratulations #ASCRS2017 on a great meeting! Thank you to all who visited the booth to provide feedback on #Senhance #Surgery #RoboticCRS pic.twitter.com/9U66TSaVGa

— TransEnterix (@TransEnterix) June 14, 2017

According to TransEnterix, the company that developed the machine, it’s the first surgical assistant for the abdominal area to get the FDA’s approval since 2000. The company claims it’s also the first one with eye tracking and force feedback. As you can see above, surgeons sit behind a console with a 3D view of the site of operation to control three surgical arms. Senhance’s camera can follow their eye movements and show what they’d be looking at if they were manually performing the surgery on screen. The machine’s controllers can also make surgeons feel the stiffness of the tissue they’re operating on.

Now that Senhance has been approved by the FDA, you’ll likely start seeing it — from afar, we hope, and not while you’re on the operating table — in hospitals across the US. Here’s a sample procedure being performed with the machine’s help if you’d like to watch it in action.

Source: FDA, TransEnterix

Microsoft confirms original Xbox backward compatibility still coming this year

Why it matters to you

Retro gamers have been clamoring for original Xbox backward capability for years, and now Microsoft is poised to deliver.

One of the surprise announcements at the 2017 E3 show was backward compatibility for some original Xbox games, meaning you’d be able to play some classics from Microsoft’s first console on Xbox One. Not many details were made available, but the company has confirmed that the planned feature is still on track for some time later this year. Many Xbox 360 games have been available on Xbox One for a couple of years. Although some reports suggest that backward compatibility is not a big deal for most gamers, Microsoft disputes those findings, saying that “players are highly engaged with backwards compatibility game titles.”

In a wide-ranging interview with GameSpot from the Brazil Game Show, Phil Spencer of Xbox seemed enthusiastic about the upcoming feature. “We’re close, we’re really close,” he said. “I have a little dashboard I go to and I can see all the games, where they are in getting approvals in the pipeline.”

At E3, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge and Fuzion Frenzy were the only two games mentioned for the backward compatibility list, although Spencer’s mention of a “dashboard” would seem to suggest a dozen or more titles. “Some of the games hold up really well; some of them don’t,” he added. “But the gameplay mechanics and the smile on your face 15 years ago playing those games, those are things that are still there. I see it, like getting back to playing Crimson Skies, fantastic, and the game actually looks really good even though it’s obviously been around.”

Last month, Windows Central got a chance to test-drive one of the games on Xbox One. It noted that the Fuzion Frenzy gameplay remains nearly identical to the original game. The games aren’t enhanced or remastered in any way for the new console generation, so don’t expect any real improvements other than frame rates.

Fuzion Frenzy was also presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio, with black bars on both sides of the screen, which was pretty normal for that era. Fifteen years ago, very few games were available in the newer 16:9 ratio that’s the standard today.

Spencer also mentioned some sort of capability specific to the upcoming Xbox One X, but gave no real details. “There’s some stuff we’re going to talk about in that space in terms of how compatibility’s going to work on X specifically that I think people will find pretty interesting,” he said.

Although no date was mentioned as to when we might see the new backward compatibility games, it may very well be included the next Xbox One dashboard update, which is just around the corner in advance of the new console. The Xbox One X will launch on November 7 with a retail price of $499.

Astronauts on the space station are playing around with a fidget spinner

Why it matters to you

Working in a weightless environment provides its own set of unique challenges, as this video demonstrates.

What happens when you combine a NASA fidget spinner with a nearly weightless environment? Wacky hijinks, of course. Astronaut Randy Bresnik took time out from capturing pictures of the Earth and taking selfies during spacewalks to share a video on Twitter. The clip shows the crew of the International Space Station enjoying themselves with a fidget spinner. “A fidget spinner in space! How long does it spin? I’m not sure, but it’s a great way to experiment with Newton’s laws of motion!” he wrote.

Grabbing hold of the spinner allows the astronauts to spin at a speed relative to their mass. That’s why even using a simple tool such as a screwdriver can be difficult in a weightless environment if you don’t have something to anchor yourself down to.

A fidget spinner in space! How long does it spin? I'm not sure, but it’s a great way to experiment with Newton’s laws of motion! pic.twitter.com/5xIJDs2544

— Randy Bresnik (@AstroKomrade) October 13, 2017

If you’re not following Bresnik, aka @AstroKIomrade on Twitter, you’re missing out on some of the most spectacular photographs of our planet and the ISS you’ll ever see.

When they’re not playing with children’s toys, the crew is hard at work performing experiments, maintaining the station, and transferring cargo. The latest mission to the ISS launched a few days ago, set to deliver almost three tons of fuel, food, and supplies to the station. You can experience life aboard the ISS for yourself with this free virtual reality app.

The ISS is actually visible from Earth, and it’s the third-brightest object in the sky and fairly easy to see with the naked eye. It looks like a very high, very fast-moving plane. The space station completes nearly 16 orbits of the Earth per day, and NASA has eve set up a Spot the Station website where you can find a viewing spot in your area.

The ISS can’t be seen during the day and is only visible during the morning or evening hours, when it’s reflecting light from the sun. Depending on the orbit, you may be able to see the space station several times a week or only once or twice per month. You can set up email or text alerts at the site to notify you when a viewing opportunity is coming up.

If you’d like to snag your very own NASA fidget spinner, they’re available at the NASA store for $6.